


close

by snorlaxx



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Chan is mentioned, M/M, binsung, binsung i hate u post a selca, binsung r sweet babies, binsungists ily ur awesome mwah, but that's bc horatio is a ferocactus, changbin is a plant dad, changsung, churro is the mc tbh, close, cute lil drabble tbh, he talks to his plants wt f, horatio is just There, its just a vibe man, jisung knows how to pick locks, minbin broke up but neither of them are too hung up about it, no mentions of renal diseases dw, plot is a social construct, wrote this while sitting on the bathroom floor and listening abt renal diseases
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25828684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snorlaxx/pseuds/snorlaxx
Summary: changbin has been acting weird for the past several days and jisung breaks into his dorm to find out why. cute shit, really.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Seo Changbin
Comments: 7
Kudos: 67





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**JISUNG CLENCHED HIS** jaw around the lock picking tools and tightened his grip on the metal banister of some arbitrary balcony belonging to some random college third year. his subconscious intruded with an image of his twisted, mangled body on the concrete below. blood pooling around his head, stretching towards the rest of his misshapen limbs. jisung indulged in this psychological warfare often enough to be able to push it aside.

now wasn't the time for morbid fears.

he hauled himself over the edge and massaged his bruised palms. for someone with a height phobia, he did a heck lot of dangerous climbing. 

the night was lonely, no moon and no accompanying stars. the moon calendar he'd committed to memory told him the moon would be in its late stages of waning. almost a crescent. that was how jisung felt at times, a crescent looking towards a future when he might be a full moon. unlike the moon cycle, he never made it to the final stage. 

jisung huffed, hoping the third year whose balcony he was trespassing upon was an early sleeper. 

he flung his body to attach himself to the metal drainpipe and shimmied upwards. he'd done this same jig a million times. his arm reached out for the next balcony. securing his grip, he let go of the drainpipe and dangled in the air like a wannabe spiderman left to the mercy of gravity. with a surge of muscle power he climbed up the bars and threw himself on the solid floor. thank fuck changbin lived only on the second floor. 

rubbing his palms on his worn out jeans he snuck over to the locked glass door. the balcony was connected to changbin and his dorm mate, chan's, shared common room. jisung peered in, the lounge was mostly dipped in darkness save for the golden halo smoothing out the jagged edges. the light was likely coming from the cramped kitchen-makeshift-laundromat. that tiny LED bulb never went off. 

jisung spat out the tools and set off to work. he inserted the tension wrench into the bottom of the keyhole and applied minimal pressure with his thumb. the rake went in next. jisung worked with the precision and expertise of someone who was well-educated in the veiled mechanism of the lock and had used that knowledge to his own benefit several times. 

which was true, jisung had been picking locks since the day he met changbin at the shady invited-personnel-only fight club in downtown seoul. jisung wanted to get in despite having no invitation and changbin took rapid interest in the small boy with the criminal mindset. they got along well. unless they were hellbent on crushing each other whether it be verbally or physically. 

changbin was a legend at the fight club, aided with a strategic mind and impossible skill with the fist. jisung was a clusterfuck and an adrenaline druggie with the hots for anyone who could walk. 

until shit went down the metaphorical drainpipe for jisung. love, jisung concluded, was a bitch. 

it took no longer than a minute for the lock to twist. jisung jiggled the knob and tip-toed inside. he knew chan wouldn't be home, he would be holed up in a rented studio, working his ass off. jisung respected chan, saw him as a friend and an older brother he could look up to. to him, chan was different from changbin and chan was aware of that too. jisung harboured way too many emotions for the dark haired rapper. 

these emotions bothered him, toyed with his senses and sleeping capabilities and they opened a whole new world of paranoia for him. and this paranoia was what led him to changbin at this late hour. 

changbin had been acting strange for the past three days and jisung couldn't help panicking it was because of him. maybe changbin had found out about jisung's little secret. maybe he was avoiding him. after all, he had a boyfriend and jisung would only complicate matters. 

jisung wanted to clear it up and if it meant lying about his feelings to protect a dear friendship, he would do so. 

he manoeuvred his way through the old-as-time couch and tv set and closed in on the oakwood door he knew to be changbin's. he was about to just barge right in, like he usually did, when he heard the slow murmur. 

"i must've done something wrong, right? right, churro?" 

jisung stopped dead in his tracks. cold dread flooded his nerves. it wasn't odd for changbin to be talking to his plants (churro was an overflowing burro's tail which had been impossibly tiny when changbin had first brought it from the nursery. now, it was an astonishing sixty centimeter long manticore tail) but the heaviness in his voice sent jisung’s heart from his cardio visceral cavity to his toes. 

it was silent for a while after and jisung’s human naivete suggested that perhaps he’d been imagining voices. changbin would be asleep or working on some music, right? 

the choked sob strangled jisung’s wishful thinking. 

“don’t  _ you _ leave me hanging too,” changbin was louder now, more desperate, more frustrated. his watery tone betrayed all the tears he’d been hiding behind covers, behind doors, in bathrooms and lyrics. 

jisung felt dirty eavesdropping but he couldn’t force himself to open that door nor could he bring himself to leave like he’d never broken in. he couldn’t stop listening to changbin berating himself

“i didn’t even love him, you know. i haven’t loved him in so long. we were doomed to fail. so why did it hurt so fucking much? why?” changbin’s breaths were laboured, he was crying. jisung wasn’t the smartest guy but even he could put two and two together. minho had broken up with changbin. 

minho and changbin had been dating since way before jisung came around. they adored each other so where did it go wrong?

“it’s all  _ his  _ fault, horatio!” changbin growled at the ferocactus he’d christened as ‘horatio.’ “he … i never know with him. it’s like reverse russian roulette; two chambers are loaded and there’s only one empty one. 66.7% chance of death.” 

jisung strained his ear to hear his nonsensical rambling. who was he talking about? certainly not minho … 

“the probability is fucked.”

jisung wished he was horatio or churro so he wouldn’t have to practically plant his ear into the door.

“i hate how oblivious jisung is-” 

his hands dropped the tools off their own accord and jisung cussed, his nerves frayed and panic coursing through him. inside, everything went silent.

then, the door was open and a red-eyed changbin towered over him. “i knew it would be you,” changbin’s voice was timid in a way it had never been. he turned and walked back inside, resigning himself to his bed. jisung took the open door as an invitation and followed. the room was aglow with the artificial light from changbin’s laptop.

they sat a ways apart, the distance one they’d never experienced with each other. 

“how much did you hear?”

“you and minho broke up,” jisung croaked, “and, uh, you hate me.” jisung fiddled with the hem of his shirt, eyes trained on it as though if he wrung it hard enough, a convenient map to a graveyard would suddenly appear on it in glow-in-the-dark ink. 

“fuck, ji, i don’t hate you. and minho? i’m not too hung up over that, we were bound to part ways. better sooner than later, yeah?” changbin began helplessly, he turned his soaked eyes to find jisung on the other end of the bed.

“you said dealing with me is like playing a game of reverse-”

“reverse russian roulette, i know. i know what i said,” changbin was quiet, his teeth gnawing at his lips, “but i’d rather play it with you than play a D-rate romeo in a shitty adaptation of romeo and juliet.” changbin was a blackbelt at avoiding eye contact and found himself counting horatio’s uncountable needles. he would count to twelve before starting all over again. 

“what?” jisung had stopped fiddling now. the blood was rushing to his brain and his neurones were having a party. he felt like he’d been given the electric chair treatment. 

“what?” changbin smiled sadly. he moved to diminish the distance and jisung noticed how beautiful he looked, despite the eye bags and the blotchy, puffy eyes and the tousled hair and the casual clothes he wore. even his smile was arresting in a melancholy way. the type of smile jisung would stab someone with his tension wrench for. 

“nothing. wish i could help. you know, with your breakup and everything,” jisung muttered, his mind a blank slate. 

“really, ji. remember our rule about  _ wishing _ ?” changbin’s chuckle was the kind one does after a funeral, when the family has calmed down and you reminisce about the deceased. 

“yeah,” jisung resigned. of course he remembered, he’d  _ made  _ the rule. 

ever since jisung could remember, his parents’ old home had a well in the backyard. a tumbledown, dried out well which was technically a safety hazard for restless seven year olds’. but jisung’s fear of heights kept him from falling over; ironic, really. he used to sit at the edge and throw coins in, accompanied by wishes. god knew how many childish wishes were stamped on the coins and sent to the depths of a seemingly bottomless pit. 

one of his most prominent wishes were for a friend. someone. anyone. 

he’d decided to boycott wishes after he found changbin. he’d gotten his wish, to be selfish would anger the well. only certainties were allowed in his life and changbin was a certainty, perhaps never as a lover but always as a friend. 

“hey,” jisung whispered, “would you mind listening to this demo i recorded?” changbin nodded, sniffling. 

jisung hated what he was about to do. that song was a confession weaved in melody and soft guitar riffs and jisung had poured his all into it. he had dubbed it “close” after the stranger who’d managed to flip his world upside down with a single greeting.

he silently handed the earphones to him and settled into a nervous sphere, eyes searching changbin for reactions. annoyingly enough, changbin remained as stoic as ever. the one minute long demo stretched to a millenia. time was the ultimate fucker in the grand scheme of things. 

changbin looked up, “it’s fucking brilliant, ji.” he looked a little out of breath.

“you think? i wrote it for you because, well, you had me at hello,” jisung blurted out and mentally obliterated himself. what the fuck! who just  _ says  _ that to their best mate? no one! 

changbin stared, dumbfounded and looking just as annihilated as jisung’s mental guide. he looked between the phone, jisung and churro like he was looking at a math test with a perfect score. 

“yeah?  _ you  _ had me at the first bloody swing, you bastard,” changbin grinned. it was contagious, jisung felt the weight lifting off his shoulders and his lips curving upwards. he laughed, when they had first met, jisung had followed up changbin’s friendly ‘hello’ with a punch to the cheek. he’d drawn blood. changbin had simply chucked, the devil whispering ideas in his ear. 

“wanna fight?” jisung rolled his shoulders.

“that’s my line,” changbin complained with little heat. indeed, back then it had been his line. their fight had been crazily one-sided (changbin being a much more experienced fighter) but changbin had treated him to shitty street vendor churros afterwards. three days after that fight, jisung was introduced to changbin’s succulent; churro. 

jisung shifted into a lazy stance but unbeknownst to him, changbin had slightly different plans that started as a fist fight but ended up in a wrestling match on changbin’s hostel issue mattress. 

changbin won the battle.

“we’re ok, right?” jisung whispered, feverish, later that night. the clock was striking 3AM and changbin’s arm was draped over his midsection. 

“we’re ok.”

but jisung had won the war. 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm emotionally at my wits end and this is the result 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/circehjs)


End file.
